Translator’s Note
The translator’s aim, in this undertaking, was to maintain that ludicrous solemnity and self-importance by which the inimitable Cervantes has distinguished the character of Don Quixote, without raising him to the insipid rank of a dry philosopher, or debasing him to the melancholy circumstances and unentertaining caprice of an ordinary madman; and to preserve the native humour of Sancho Panza from degenerating into mere proverbial phlegm, or affected buffoonery.
He has endeavoured to retain the spirit and ideas, without servilely adhering to the literal expression of the original; from which, however, he has not so far deviated, as to destroy that formality of idiom, so peculiar to the Spaniards, and so essential to the character of the work.
The satire and propriety of many allusions, which had been lost in the change of custom and lapse of time, are restored in explanatory notes; and the whole is conducted with that care and circumspection, which ought to be exerted by every author, who, in attempting to improve upon a task already performed, subjects himself to the most invidious comparison.